Spain's Almirall gains on report of Actavis interest

Dec 19 (Reuters) - Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Spanish drugmaker Almirall jumped 9 percent on Friday after a Bloomberg report of potential takeover interest from Actavis (NYSE: ACT - news) .

Almirall played down the report, saying in a regulatory filing that "the news is untrue". An Almirall spokeswoman told Reuters the Spanish company had not received any takeover offer and was unaware of any approach.

Actavis could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sources with knowledge of Almirall's plans said the group, controlled by the founding Gallardo family, was focused on finding acquisition targets with a view to spending about 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in dermatology assets and other areas.

Almirall, with a market value of 2.3 billion euros, recently sold its respiratory business to AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN - news) , while Actavis is in the middle of integrating a $66 billion acquisition of Allergan (NYSE: AGN - news) .

($1 = 0.8175 euros) (Reporting by Emma Pinedo and Andres Gonzalez; Writing by Tracy Rucinski; Editing by Mark Potter)